Anacreon’s Place

Lagoon’s bioluminescent treasure, between the mermaid’s ribs;
see the prow of the ship jut under water and sand,
perfectly preserved for four centuries. There is our treasure,
the heart that carved that.

I finally cornered the sage in the party and I asked him, “What is the true nature of reconciliation between people, or lovers, or nations?” He looked around, theatrically really, as though anyone was going to listen to two elderly oddballs at a party for young people, and said, “Let me tell you a secret. We are building the kingdom of God.”

At the Game, I received applause for guessing the masked one. (Of course, I hadn’t really, I just managed to cough at the right time, and behold, chance was with me.) Then as I ascended the rostrum pretending I had any clue what I was doing, a couple profs behind me were talking so loudly (which I later realized was a calculated insult) that I couldn’t hear the questions students were asking me. I spoke politely to the gentlemen to please not talk so loudly but they ignored me. Finally I yelled “Will you shut up!!!” to universal applause. The two were absolutely dumbstruck, had probably never been spoken to disrespectfully by such as I in their lives. I proceeded to instruct the people, badly, because I was rusty in the discipline and unprepared, and kept forgetting basic truths.

That is what I did with my fifteen minutes.

delicate beginning
fecund swirl of opposing
viewrays kaleidoscope
into brilliant gray, the untimeliest
and savagest gray you ever saw;
he splashes thick hearts-full onto canvas,
blotting the lung-serum with dafts
of memory, impaled by thinkings of
her - is she out of here? - no she waits
on the bench across the street, as she
was five minutes ago when these liquor
drops began to stain the page.

empty lives empty mouths talk about the passion

I feel that I have departed from the primal revelation that formed me vivid statuesque from a clump of mud and tires behind the outhouse. I slogged forward on a rainy October night, mud-flesh runnelling off in sheets until I was afraid I was going to melt entirely, and then I realized the melting is what life’s all about, falling apart forward, and regenerating from the pool I disassemble into, again and again. Thus are civilizations bred and slain that some of us live to write about.

But seriously, the pool of fire glows dim in recent nights and I wonder if I’ve lost the thing that makes Making worthwhile. The machinery toggles with admirable poised efficiency and the tapes shuttle back and forth with a satisfying buzz, while the daisy wheels clack incessantly as my library self-deploys. Something is missing though. I am looking at the hole in the floor where there was once a fish pond and it’s all dirt and rock, with a few dandelions poking up between the pebbles. Not enough to make wine.

The initial central Asian journeys were full of trouble and mayhem, very stressful, but ultimately very fulfilling, if only in that I learned what to avoid, and had a damn good time doing it, though my knees still kill me, and I have a few scars to show for it. I notice my travel-logs of those days were filled with a certain jubilant tautness, though I tended to take myself too seriously. Those lines reeked of leather and gunpowder and tobacco juice.

Now there’s mildew in the closets and the papyri stare back at me as though wondering when I am going to get off my ass and go fetch them some partners. I guess that’s the problem. It’s been a long time since I’ve had an adventure. I’ll have to make some calls, see who’s doing what. There must be some lost treasure to be found still, one that’s had my name on it since before the dawn of time.

Don’t have the handset programmed
Will the descendants understand the
Parsing alphanumerics
The pantry of rusted
Cans, the freezer with
Human haunches boiled
Upon-this is what
The industrial machine
Does to you and me. 
Chews us up and spits us
Out perfect
To squeak two by two.